From the Boston Globe:
US Representative Katherine Clark and her husband were watching “Veep” Sunday night, when police lights engulfed her Melrose [Massachusetts] home.
Clark went outside, assuming something was wrong with one of her neighbors. But she said she was alarmed and frightened to see cruisers blocking both ends of her street and “multiple officers, some with long guns, on my front lawn.”
An officer told her they had received a report of an active shooter at her house, where her 13- and 16-year-old boys had just gone to bed.
But of course.
As the Globe notes, Clark is the sponsor of a bill that would make swatting a federal crime. Swatting, of course, is the practice of maliciously making false reports in order to send swarms of police and/or SWAT teams to the home of your target.
It’s not a hypothetical worry: several Gamergate critics have been swatted. And it goes without saying that it’s pretty dangerous to send a small army of heavily armed cops to a home where they think an active shooter is barricaded.
If Clark’s swatters intended to intimidate her, they seem to have failed. The Globe again:
Clark acknowledged that the experience Sunday night was deeply disconcerting.
But asked if she would be less vocal about the issue now, she laughed and said no.
“If that was the intent of calling in this event,” Clark said, “I think they have underestimated my commitment to making sure that we do stop this practice.”
Clark said she had been very sympathetic to people have been the victims of swatting before Sunday night but now fully understands what it’s like.
“It will,” she said, “really cause me to double down.”
Targeting a politician with what is essentially terrorism? Doesn’t seem like a particularly smart choice on the part of whoever was behind this.
H/T — r/GamerGhazi
Gamergate immediately speculated that she had probably just done it to herself.
Bad news for the Gamergaters!
Katherine Clark: Is she . . . Katie?
“Let’s show her by doing the exact thing to her she’s campaigning against! That’ll shut her up!”
(OT: I have discovered that I can do this laugh. I promise to use my shojo-antagonist powers for good.)
You’re assuming they make particularly smart choices any other time?
If there’s anybody who has the implicit protection against mistreatment by the police, and who has the power to respond to a SWAT, it’s a politician.
Thank goodness these folks don’t think; they just gave Rep. Clark more ammunition for her cause.
David: I was literally coming to the comments to ask how long before they started calling “False Flag”.
Gamergaters are either the stupidest people in the world (e.g. swatting a politician who wants to make swatting a crime, then crying that she did it to herself/is making it up for attention), or they’re brilliant tacticians (e.g. purposefully swatting a politician who wants to make swatting a crime so they can claim she did it to herself/is making it up for attention). Either way, they’re worthless individuals who should be put to work shovelling coal and scrubbing toilets to keep them out of trouble.
They’re so used to targeting marginalized people who have little to no power to make law enforcement take their threats seriously. They’ve definitely gone too far. Hopefully they’ll be an arrest and a long sentence this time.
Any lawyers or other people knowledgeable in these matters know whether or not this type of crime carries heavier penalties if the victim is a federal government official?
I’m curious as to how effective her legislation will be in practice in getting dangerous assholes prosecuted, but good on Mrs. Clark for her steadfastness.
Aaaaand way to prove her right, fellas!
Please, enjoy your surprise visit from the Internet cops.
That anyone would seriously think that Clark would do this to herself to make a point has not read the facts. She has children, she would not have put them through that just to make a point ffs. Also, she laughed when asked if it would deter her. NOT the reaction of someone who did it themselves, who would have gone on about how traumatising it was and how scared everyone was.
No, this is a robust and determined woman who has been able to see the victim’s POV so can empathise more now. But is clearly not planning to milk the experience.
I would have thought the police can determine pretty quickly where the call came from, and it will be made obvious she did not do it.
I’m glad things turned out okay, swattings are scary stuff. And I’m sort of glad to know these twice baked turds still haven’t figured out the Streisand Effect.
@ ellesar
It may be that if they “want to make a Federal case about it” (in the literal, not rhetorical sense) the authorities can use a National Security Letter to find out who made the call, bypassing the need for warrants and the like; so this could be resolved quite quickly.
@Ellesar: The police have to respond to every call, including ones from internet-based phones that are untraceable, so *in theory*, assuming the call had such an origin, she could have done this to herself.
(An utterly ridiculous theory that rests on the idea that she would have no compunction putting her kids’ lives at risk over such a completely uncontroversial piece of legislation.)
This is like how all those “critics” of Anita Sarkeesian tried to make it out that her Kickstarter was some big scam that she somehow (’cause reasons!) manipulated people into funding, as if their hyperbolically childish reactions to her videos and general shitty behavior didn’t work as evidence as to why people would contribute to such a thing. As if people are incapable of voluntarily giving their money to a project or something equally asinine…
Yeah, the best way to disprove one’s negative image is to continually do things that contribute to that negative image – but then blame it on someone else, usually by saying they “brought it on themselves.”
There was a video that got recommended to me on YouTube (for some reason, YT seems to think I want to see “both sides of the story” regardless of who I preemptively block when I watch a video about Anita or Zoe) where this guy (Who I’m assuming is a big deal, considering I’ve seen his face many times before) was just insisting that Zoe Quinn is NOT a big deal, and that was just the title of the video.
Apparently, he was up in arms about Zoe getting a movie, and he was insisting that she’s “not that big of a deal” and doesn’t “deserve” a movie.
I assume the irony was lost on him.
(Also, I’m stealing ‘twice baked turds’, that’s a good one.)
@ Paradoxy
I don’t care how good the bands are, I am definitely not coming to your bake sale.
Australian media (ABC, nationally funded broadcaster, I guess a bit like American PBS) picked up the Roosh story – the title is priceless, hope it makes anyone even remotely for PUA stuff to think again.
“http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-02/petition-to-stop-return-of-kings-meetings/7132062”
@P.I.
God, that annoys the shit out of me too…
Just because I like Jim Sterling, Super Bunnyhop, and Errand Signal doesn’t mean I want to see anything from Mr. Rapzion or fucking TechReviewUSA.
Seriously, false equivalency is the worst goddamn thing to happen in modern discourse. It’s like you can’t talk about an issue without someone coming along and acting like “the other side” of the issue is obligated to be validated by their opponents. It’s why, when ethnic minorities or women deal with experiences specific to their race or gender, you will always have white guys who come along and whine about how they have it “just as bad” – throwing a massive hissy-fit when their oh-so-precious feelings get hurt, after having said some racist or sexist shit and called out for it.
@Paradoxical
I can feel the jealousy from here.
@Alan
But what if the proceeds go toward much needed scented candles and hair dye? We can’t misander without basic supplies!
Exactly. Sometimes, I just don’t want to see that bullshit recommended to me. I just want to get some people’s opinion on it, or just be informed about what’s going on.
And no, lurkers, that doesn’t mean I’m in an “echo chamber”. I’m well aware of what your side thinks about the topics, considering you never shut the fuck up about them.
It also sucks because then you have cishet white dudes marching in on a conversation and expecting everyone to “debate” them at the drop of a fucking trilby because Person A said something they didn’t like or agree with, and now they have to provide sources and shit to prove it, but of course you can’t source that site because it’s too “biased” or it’s part of the conspiracy, and you can’t source anecdotal evidence even if it’s about things that happen frequently to large groups of people, and you can’t do this, and you can’t do that, ect. And you can’t get “emotional” even if it’s something that personally affects your day-to-day life, you can’t get angry with them because they’re “just asking”, and of course, you have to deal with that bullshit of “I don’t see it, so it’s not happening!”
There’s no fucking winning because they’ve got the goal posts tied to an RC car, and they fucking know it.
And even if you choose not to participate, they’ll screech about “winning” because you refuse to deal with them, and thus, everything they said is “right” and you “can’t prove” any “claims” you supposedly made.
I literally had a guy come at me on twitter a while ago and say I have to provide sources for saying that MRAs encourage men to hate women “without bigotry, hate, or anger” because he’s never been encouraged to hate or harass women by MRAs, so I was obviously making it up.
I asked myself what the fuck that even means, but I figured that it’s pretty much it’s bullshit-ese for “You can’t source anything I don’t personally like from places I don’t personally like”.
And, naturally, when I did provide sources for AVfM asking for a bounty on a woman’s information (the one who got Sage Gerard busted for breaking into the women’s restroom at his college) as an example of MRAs encouraging men to harass women, he called it “public research” and said that was fine, so I went “yeah, we’re fucking done, you’re not asking me this shit in good faith you disingenuous shitlord”.
Honestly, I’m just tired of having my safety and personal identity being considered “debatable” by these fuckers. My life is not your conversation piece, douchebros.
And we were going to misander by charging men a buck and a quarter for their cupcakes while we only charge women a dollar too! To make up for the wage gap!
And we were going to serve pro-lifers cups of batter and convince them they’re cupcakes!
Long-time lurker here again. I truly amn’t being disingenuous, but what you the feck does , “double down”, mean?
Eibhear: “Double down” means to go at something you were already going at, with double determination. Basically, she’s saying that not only have they not scared her off, they’ve just made her all the more determined to get this law passed.
From my understanding the USA has about 400 swatting incidences a year, catching people doing it is pretty uncommon. However it’s a high profile target much like the doxxing of Judge Katherine Forrest, so who knows.
I’m currently reading with fascination and horror Rise of the Warrior Cop by Radley Balko, and it utterly baffles me how anyone could call in a SWAT strike on someone just to make a point. Innocent people get killed in those… and even if you don’t think she’s innocent (because eeeevil feminazeeee…) there are her kids to consider. Jesus. These people have not a single shred of humanity.